USA ‘09 – DAY 9 – DISNEY EPCOT

Another day, another park. Today was the turn of EPCOT.

EPCOT is a little unusual compared to the other Disney parks in that while it has the traditional rides it also has what it calls its World Showcase. This contains distinctive buildings and themes from a dozen countries around the world. For example Italy has scenes from Venice, Canada the Rockies etc. For a lot of people it is probably the closest they will ever get – particularly Americans who have a only a small percentage holding passports.

The UK is represented by a building that could be a scaled down version of Hampton Court and a pub. It’s all very twee but it is the only place in Florida that we have been able to find Cadburys chocolate, even if it is at vastly inflated prices, and Cadburys beats Hersheys hands down. There is also a show in the streets which is high camp and panto which the boys find amusing – particularly as the cast is made up in part by poor unsuspecting tourists.

Elsewhere there are a couple of other good things to visit. The first is Spaceship Earth, a slow moving ride through the “golf ball” symbol of the park. This has been “reimagined” since the last time we were here and now the train you ride in has a touch screen from which you choose your language and county of origin. This led to us being guided round by Dame Judy Dench. Not sure who represented Scotland, Wales and Ireland. At the end you select from some options and a short film of you in the future is shown. You can see the one that was put together for Alex and me here:

Alex and Neil in a vision of the futureThe other great ride and probably the most popular attraction in EPCOT is Test Track, a simulation of a car being put through its paces over rough roads, brake testing and finally a speed test on the track. This last part is a banked track on which your “car” is driven up to 64mph. It’s great fun as you can see from the video below with Alex and Mats heads bobbing away in front of us.